Wexford too busy for probe into brawl
Wexford officials will be too busy this week to deal with a serious breach of discipline that forced the abandonment of an U-21 club game on Monday night.
Because of preparations for Sunday's first Leinster football final appearance for the county in 52 years, the Wexford Board have indicated it will be next week before they get around to investigating the premature end of the game between Buffers Alley and St Martin's.
A young referee was pursued to his car after his decision to call a halt 10 minutes from the end after a mass brawl erupted.
Tackled
The brawl featured players, substitutes and supporters after a Buffers Alley player was tackled heavily.
Wexford chairman Ger Doyle said time would be scarce this week to look into the incident because of the excessive demand for tickets to see the county play Dublin.
Doyle indicated that the referee's report was expected to be with the board by last night but he refused to speculate on what course an investigation would take because there were "conflicting reports" about what had happened.
On the demand for tickets, the chairman indicated that it was evoking memories of Wexford's last rampant hurling summer.
"It's on a par with what we experienced in 1996," said Doyle. "There were queues at 7.45 this morning at Wexford County Board's offices and again at 2.30. At any given time there were 300 people waiting for tickets," he said.
Doyle estimates that Wexford will shift up to 15,000 tickets for the game with many more of the county's supporters picking up tickets through other channels.
The interest in the county should ensure a sell-out 80,000-plus crowd in Croke Park on Sunday.
- Colm Keys
